Your Tax Question - 078

Dear John, I was wondering if there is an age limit for claiming my child on my taxes.  Thank you, Jennifer
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Hi Jennifer,


Yes, Your child must be under age 19 (or under age 24 if a full-time student).  However, you may still be able to claim your child as a dependent relative as long as he/she meets some other IRS criteria as well.


Thanks,
John


PS.  Shoot me an email and I will be happy to help you with the Dependent Exemption tests.

Your Tax Question - 006b

This is a continuation from - Your Tax Question - 006a...
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Wendel, You should also consider who is your Qualifying Relative for determining who is your dependent as an exemption on your taxes. People who failed to meet any one of the Qualifying Child Tests, you may find that they do qualify as a Qualifying Relative. A Qualifying Relative must satisfy just four tests:

1. The Relationship Test
2. The Gross Income Test
3. The Support Test
4. The Dependency Test

1. The Relationship Test

• A child or decedent of said child
• Sibling or step-sibling
  
• Parent or decedent of either
• Step-parent
• A sibling's child
• In-Laws (son, daughter, mother, father, brother, sister)
• any individual who shares the sajme principal abode as the tax-payer

2. The Gross Income test

• Must have less than $3,650 of income

3. The Support Test

• Over half of the dependent's total support for the year must have been provided by the tax-payer.
• Special rules apply for multi-support agreement for children of divorced persons.

4. The individual must not have been the qualifying child of anyone else during the year. All in all, many people qualify to be your dependent if they have lived in your home for the year but then the Gross Income and Support Tests may bump them out as easily as they qualified. Be sure to discuss all of this with your tax professional. Best to you, John
PS. If you don't have a tax professional yet, be sure to contact me about how you can get on my client list. Email me